Quicken Matching new transaction downloaded to reconciled transaction in the past

This happens about once a month. New transactions are downloaded from my bank. Quicken is automatically matching the transaction to an already reconciled transaction. In all cases the transaction is from 2016 or 2017. In most cases the transaction is a credit card payment (a transfer in Quicken from Bank account to credit card account in Quicken). Quicken should never match against a reconciled transaction, especially one more than 60 days old. On the Mac version there does not appear to be an option to turn off automatic matching. I right-click on the transaction and "Show Inspector". This validates the the transaction was originally entered in 2016, yet Quicken matches and changes the date to June 2018 as an example.

I am losing my faith in the software ever since the acquisition given this issues I have seen. I should never have reconciled transactions change and see my reconciled balances change. Every time this happens I have to go back to bank statements from 2016 to find the error. This takes hours each time it happens.

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Comments

I would never say never BUT I agree that the logic used to perform matching lacks finesse and sometimes does exactly that. I have experienced this even in QM2007 and older versions for many years. This is logic that needs work like factoring in cheque numbers.

It appears that the logic primarily uses amount and very little else, though sometimes even transactions that to the human eye look like perfect matches, Quicken will not match, and it is totally unclear why it does not.

Many requests for clarity on the actual logic used have gone unanswered or at most are told it cannot be shared.

It would be nice if more attention was given to this.

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There is a legitimate reason to be able to match to a reconciled transaction. Say you have been manually handling an account in the past, and you take that account online. Your initial download is going to give you a whole batch of transaction history, and the program is going to match so you don't have a whole bunch of duplicates to deal with. The process of matching (correctly) to an already reconciled transaction won't affect your balances.

Your true problem is with the incorrectly matched transaction, and that certainly is annoying. Note: Quicken won't match a downloaded one to any transaction that has already been matched, so you likely have taken this account online after '16 or '17. (If you are getting transactions matched to already matched ones, then you have more serious problems. I have never heard of this.)

I am surprised that it is incorrectly matching to such old transactions as the algorithms tend to error on the side of not matching versus mismatching. But, I also don't know the fidelity of data being presented by your bank.

Getting the matching rules fine tuned is quite difficult; you make them more stringent, and users complain about the failures to match. Loosen them up, and users complain about mismatches.

You can't do much about the data coming from your bank. If you have indeed just taken this account online in the past year or two, I would give it some time as the newer transactions will eventually all be matched.

Why not allow me to at least DELETE ones that are erroneously in that list? It is very frustrating to have to manually match over and over again. This is especially true with repeating transactions for the same payee and amount every month! Give me a way to mark transcations as matched.

Ideas for user interface: - Add a (usually hidden) checkbox column to each transaction for "Matched" that could be changed by the user. - Allow transactions in the unmatched list to be deleted as part of the "Match Manually" process.

Thanks John. I have always used online banking from Bank of America to sync my transactions. I also have used Quicken ever since the demise of Microsoft Money. The Windows version worked reliably in matching. The Mac version worked until this year when they started making all the updates. This episode of issues seemed to be focused both on recurring transfers. I found that many of the transfers reconciled where against the wrong instance (checking 1/1/18 matched to savings transfer 1/15/18 as an example). My stance remains the same. It should not attempt to much against reconciled or older transactions. Quicken took transactions (reconciled) from 2016 and changed the date to May 2018 in my register as a match to a newer transaction or transfer. I am continuing to "watch" for this to figure out the exact behavior. Thanks all for the comments.

Thanks John. I have always used online banking from Bank of America to sync my transactions. I also have used Quicken ever since the demise of Microsoft Money. The Windows version worked reliably in matching. The Mac version worked until this year when they started making all the updates. This episode of issues seemed to be focused both on recurring transfers. I found that many of the transfers reconciled where against the wrong instance (checking 1/1/18 matched to savings transfer 1/15/18 as an example). My stance remains the same. It should not attempt to much against reconciled or older transactions. Quicken took transactions (reconciled) from 2016 and changed the date to May 2018 in my register as a match to a newer transaction or transfer. I am continuing to "watch" for this to figure out the exact behavior. Thanks all for the comments.

Quicken took transactions (reconciled) from 2016 and changed the date to May 2018 in my register as a match to a newer transaction or transfer.

If Quicken logic allows for this, this is just plain wrong. The only thing matching should ever change is the Payee based on "learning" and nothing else. Quicken should never change existing data, ever! The downloaded transaction date should be stored as a Posted Date at best. This should be reported as a bug via the Report a Problem menu under the Help menu.

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Thanks John. I have always used online banking from Bank of America to sync my transactions. I also have used Quicken ever since the demise of Microsoft Money. The Windows version worked reliably in matching. The Mac version worked until this year when they started making all the updates. This episode of issues seemed to be focused both on recurring transfers. I found that many of the transfers reconciled where against the wrong instance (checking 1/1/18 matched to savings transfer 1/15/18 as an example). My stance remains the same. It should not attempt to much against reconciled or older transactions. Quicken took transactions (reconciled) from 2016 and changed the date to May 2018 in my register as a match to a newer transaction or transfer. I am continuing to "watch" for this to figure out the exact behavior. Thanks all for the comments.

There is a option in Preferences:Connected Services that has the option to use posted date for matched transactions. He likely has that set as that is the default.

Thanks John. I have always used online banking from Bank of America to sync my transactions. I also have used Quicken ever since the demise of Microsoft Money. The Windows version worked reliably in matching. The Mac version worked until this year when they started making all the updates. This episode of issues seemed to be focused both on recurring transfers. I found that many of the transfers reconciled where against the wrong instance (checking 1/1/18 matched to savings transfer 1/15/18 as an example). My stance remains the same. It should not attempt to much against reconciled or older transactions. Quicken took transactions (reconciled) from 2016 and changed the date to May 2018 in my register as a match to a newer transaction or transfer. I am continuing to "watch" for this to figure out the exact behavior. Thanks all for the comments.

Ah yes, of course... good point. But having that as a default is a bad idea IMHO.

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How would I know if something like this were happening to me? Is accounts not reconciling the big giveaway?

I'm new to Quicken and just want to be aware of possible issues to watch out for or perhaps get some tips on the best way to monitor for possible issues like this which may crop up in the future.

One way is to turn on the Matching column to see what is matched with what. Otherwise, it is simply a process of elimination and a keen eye to catch these things. Unfortunately, no good tools to assist beyond that. The closest that could help is a tool that exists in QM2007 that has yet to be reintroduced to QM2018.

First, click on the underlined link above to go there, then click VOTE at the top of THAT page, so your will vote count for THIS feature and increase its visibility to the developers by seeking to have the features you need or desire end up in the latest version.

While you are at it, you may want to add your VOTE to related IDEAS found on the List of Requests for Reconciliation Process. Click on the underlined link, then follow the instructions to add your vote to more related ideas. Your VOTES matter!

(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)

If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.

How would I know if something like this were happening to me? Is accounts not reconciling the big giveaway?

I'm new to Quicken and just want to be aware of possible issues to watch out for or perhaps get some tips on the best way to monitor for possible issues like this which may crop up in the future.

Thank you. I've voted on your suggested link. I see that the specific matching issue probably doesn't apply to me given that I only download transactions, but I could see how improvements to reconciliation would be useful.